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How to create awesome Minecraft screenshots

When you wish to showcase your latest and best build, typical screenshots just don’t cut it. Instead, you’ll want to render your masterpiece in a picture worthy of Thomas Kinkade. But how can you do this?

Once you’re finished installing Chunky, open it.You’ll see something like this:

Make sure the Java and Minecraft directories are correct (they will be unless you’ve installed Java/Minecraft into a weird folder), then click Launch.

Now, you need to open your Minecraft world in Chunky. To do this, click on Select World and then choose your world from the list (if your world is singleplayer) or browse for the world if you’re using a standalone server. Chunky will then load the map.

The next step is to select the chunks that will be rendered in the final image. In other words, we need to select the area around which we want to take our ‘screenshot’ . To do this, press and hold shift, then click and drag around the desired area.

Note: In the Options tab, there’s a button that allows you to load a custom texture pack for your render. I strongly recommend you use this. In my case, I’m using the Conquest texture pack.

Now that we’ve selected the relevant area, we can go to the 3D Render tab and click on New Scene. This will open up two windows, the Render Controls window and the Render Preview window.In the Render Preview window, move the camera around (using the mouse and arrow keys) until you’re satisfied with it’s position.

Now, we need to configure the Render Controls. I used the following settings, but I recommend you experiment to find what’s best for you.

Note: Setting high values for SSP target (greater that one thousand) will drastically increase the time it takes for the image to render.

When you’re satisfied with your settings, click Start. All that’s left to do now is to wait for it to finish rendering!

Here’s a side-by-side comparison of a screenshot taken in Minecraft versus the Chunky render: